Toronto Awarded WNBA Expansion Team

In a landmark move, the WNBA officially awarded the city of Toronto an expansion, making the to be named organization the 14th team in the WNBA. The league just recently unveiled the Golden State Valkyries, who will be joining the league in full in 2025. Toronto is expected to participate starting in the 2026 WNBA season.

This will be the WNBA's first venture outside the United States, a significant moment in the young history of the association, made possible by the implementation of a charter flight program that will be fully in effect by June of this season.

Long time Toronto Raptors executive Teresa Resch was named President of the organization. Kilmer Sports Ventures, led by Larry Tanenbaum, will own and operate the franchise.

“Today is a game-changing day not only for women’s basketball but also for sports in Canada,” said Tanenbaum.  “This franchise will be Canada’s team, and we are so excited to unite the country and inspire pride and passion in fans from coast to coast.”

The team will play its home games at historic Coca-Cola Coliseum at Exhibition Place in downtown Toronto.  It is expected that additional games may be played at Scotiabank Arena and across Canada.  The team has also committed to building a new, state-of-the-art practice facility that will be dedicated to the team and community initiatives.

Resch stated that the team will play games in multiple cities in Canada throughout the WNBA season, providing an opportunity to showcase themselves as Canada's team.

The league is also expected to expand out to 16 teams by the 2028 WNBA season. Women's basketball has been on the rise over the past half decade, and as businesses and investors finally catch up to the product, we are in store for a significant growth in women's professional basketball on a global scale.